


Hush The Noise

by TheIntelligentHufflepuff



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Allusions to PTSD, Awkward Steve Rogers, Catholic Steve Rogers, Christmas, Hanukkah, Hurt/Comfort, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mutual Pining, Yearning, allusions to period-typical bigotry, friends who are in love with each other vibe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/pseuds/TheIntelligentHufflepuff
Summary: Love, yearning, and easy intimacy in a war-torn, ice-cold winter.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Hush The Noise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> This is a (belated) Christmas present for my friend who requested WWII-era and yearning, which I hope this delivers! 10/10 stucky fic flavours imo. 
> 
> If anyone notices anything wrong with the Judaism (or Catholicism) stuff please let me know! I used google translate for the Yiddish (which I would guess Bucky would speak if he was going to speak any Jewish dialect because I'm translating Sebastian Stan's Eastern European origins onto him)- translations at the end of the fic. 
> 
> And if anyone happens to know what Jewish people do if they need to celebrate Hanukkah but can't get hold of a menorah I would really appreciate it if you could comment that if you have the time and desire to, bc I couldn't find anything in my google searches applicable to the 1940s and am therefore winging it with what's actually in the fic and hoping that it conforms enough to the requirements to be kosher. (The consensus on google seems to be for the modern era, pack an electric one if you're gonna be away from home). Thank you!
> 
> CW for allusions to anti-Semitism (moderate), anti-Catholicism, and maybe homophobia (both light).
> 
> Enjoy!

"Hey, city boy!" Jones yelled. 

Steve startled, nearly dropping his battered sketchbook straight onto the creamy white snowdrops he'd been drawing. They quivered in fear when he snatched the book up again, slipping it swiftly into his breast pocket. 

Mortia, propped up against the trunk of the nearest towering spruce, paused his whittling and snickered. 

"Our fearless leader." 

Exercising discretion for once in his life, Steve ignored him and turned to Jones.

He was stood in the centre of the clearing, hip cocked, gesturing with one heavily mittened hand at the log circle they'd made in the centre of their camp; or more specifically gesturing at Bucky, who'd stripped down to his undershirt and seemed to be shaving with a pocket knife. 

"What's he…" 

Jones shrugged, brows drawn in concern. Jim leant in to peer around Steve and- attuned as they all were to any disturbance in the group- Steve caught both Duggan and Monty glancing up too. 

"I'll go and-" 

Jones nodded, eyes kind. 

Steve shoved his hands into his pockets and crossed the camp in short order. As he drew up to Bucky, he was hit with a gust of pure air and pine, nothing like the smog that had clung to them in Brooklyn. Invigorating. Threatening. 

The dull glint of Bucky's knife as it dipped into his water-filled canteen didn't cease. 

"You'll notice the rest of us have scarves on." Steve remarked. 

Bucky hummed, bestowing Steve with barely a glance via the pockmarked piece of glass he was using as a mirror. 

" _ You  _ don't." 

"Well…"

Steve rocked on his heels, wrongfooted just as he always was when Bucky's simmering disdain for the serum broke through in a comment, a look, a frown that killed their rhythm when joshing turned physical and Bucky could no longer toss him around the way he used to. 

And Bucky's shaving. That...that was distracting too, and not just because it suggested an intensely concerning disregard for the icy cold of the Black Forest in midwinter. 

Steve had always been fascinated by Bucky shaving. At first it had been innocent: Bucky was a year older and about ten times healthier than Steve, so of course his body hair had come in first, leaving Steve to watch, jealous and curious, as Bucky proved himself a young man through a straight razor and a towel. Later, though, when Steve himself had gained hair in interesting places and sensations to boot, his spectatorship became something very different. 

It had become secret, for one thing. Steve was no peeping Tom but it was easy just to look, to make use of their intimacy as Bucky stood by the sink in their tiny section of tenement and chatted away, throwing his head back into the light, smoothing his hands over his throat, broad, short-cut nails playing on the edge of a smile as he surveyed his handiwork, unbuttoned and ready for pomade, Brooklyn's biggest suave. A man through and through, naturally, with enough machismo to drive Steve's fingernails into his thighs but a whole lot of something else that begged for…that begged for something soft and burning Steve didn't have a name for yet, but which he knew without a doubt was far too sacred for Confession. 

Bucky finally paused his motions and turned to Steve, a delicate pink dusting his cheeks. 

“Steve?” 

“Right.” Steve cleared his throat, shifted his weight to his left leg “Why are you shaving?” 

Bucky turned back to his mirror, dark brows puckering. 

“Can’t a man shave?”

“‘Course he can. Stupid fucking idea to do it here, though.” 

“Where the fuck else am I gonna do it?”

“Shit, I don’t know in the tent? When the fucking fire’s lit?” 

“Piss off.” Bucky grunted, jerking his knife sharply down his neck, narrowly avoiding drawing blood; Steve cringed, but settled down on the other log to wait him out. Bucky always spat before he overspilled. 

Sure enough, a moment or so later Bucky glanced surreptitiously at Steve, gestured vaguely with his knife, and admitted: “First day of Hanukkah. Muter always wanted us presentable for it.” 

“Oh, I know.” Steve grinned. He’d been over to the Barnes’ exactly once at Hanukkah, when he was eight or so, a house call motivated primarily by the fact that his mother had been forced by an unfortunate accumulation of circumstances to work a triple shift and was nervous about leaving him at home. The second he’d stepped through the door he’d been sent to have a bath and his clothes shoved into the tub, much to the amusement of Bucky’s little sister. If she was like that at Hanukkah Steve would love to see the epic battle between Mrs Barnes and city dust at Rosh Hashanah. 

“Yeah.” Bucky’s lip twitched.

“So why you gotta do it now?” 

"Well…" 

Bucky trailed off, glancing surreptitiously around them. The rest of the unit were making it very obvious that they  _ weren't  _ watching, but it was clear they had an audience. 

Steve frowned, feeling two steps behind. Social niceties were by no means lost on him, but he never seemed to take to them as naturally as did his ma or Bucky. 

"Did you not want to wake them, or…" 

" _ No _ ," Bucky huffed "I mean they'd ask  _ why _ ." 

"Ah. Do they not…"

Bucky shook his head sharply. 

This was new information to Steve; he'd assumed the rest of the Commandos obviously knew that Bucky was Jewish because it said it on his dog tags. Then he realised that not everyone necessarily paid as much attention to Bucky's dog tags as he did, and that not everyone had going on two decades worth of experience in Bucky's creative bitching about his rabbi to base their knowledge on. Come to think of it, given the Commandos hadn't witnessed Steve's condemnations of the pope, and the fact that he hardly publicised his bedtime rosary use, it was entirely possible that the Commandos didn't realise he was Catholic either. 

"Surely they don't think we're Atheists. Or  _ Protestants _ ." 

A flat stare. 

“Hmm.” Steve rubbed his chin. 

Bucky shook his head “You think it’s awkward for  _ you _ , imagine what it’s like fa’ me.” 

“You don’t-” Steve glanced at Duggan, scratching his head under his hat some feet away “You don’t think they’d  _ mind  _ do you? I mean, we’re all here together.”  _ In an international, desegregated unit that nearly gave Colonel Phillips a heart attack _ , Steve didn't’ clarify. 

“Sure, that’s a good sign,” Bucky conceded “But it ain’t exactly the same is it.” 

Then with a grimace he flicked his penknife shut, as if putting the whole thing behind him. 

Steve crossed his arms “We’re fighting a war about that, you know.”

_ Flick _ . The knife was out again, tossed restlessly in Bucky’s hands. 

“Sure, Steve,” he scoffed “Cos America’s had a real change of heart. Cos the world’s had a real-” 

Abruptly, Bucky stood and stalked away, arms crossed, knife still dangling from his fingertips. Without missing a beat, Steve followed. Bucky came to a stop a few paces into the forest, far enough removed for a modicum of privacy but near enough in case of trouble. Red rimmed his eyes and his cheeks, one smooth and one stubbled, were dotted with slowly crystalising tears. With nimble hands Steve unbuttoned his coat and draped it over Bucky’s shoulders; he turned his face away, but not before Steve saw his features spasm with an emotion he wouldn’t dare to name. 

Nevertheless Steve’s heart hitched at the sight of Bucky burrowing down into his coat, eyes bright and tears subsiding, red fingers slowly regaining colour, an elegant study of contrasts in the bold white and deep green of the snow-dusted trees.

_ Off-limits _ . 

“Sorry.” Bucky croaked, then cleared his throat “Sorry. You can-” 

“Hey.” Steve said, and reached out to touch Bucky gently on the elbow. 

If Bucky was Peggy, he’d kiss her instead, as softly as could be, and wipe away the tear tracks on her cheeks. 

But Bucky wasn’t Peggy, and Steve had to do something, so he did the next best thing. 

“There’s something for you in the breast pocket- no, the other one- yeah,” Steve nodded, as Bucky extracted the object in question “That’s the one.” 

“Okay?” Bucky said as he eyed the old tobacco tin, dunched and scratched and prettied up as much as possible with rough engravings of fairly delicate flowers. He gave it an experimental rattle, popped it open, and swallowed heavily. Eight candle stumps and a taper, painstakingly collected, stared back. 

“Is this for-?” 

Steve nodded “I don’t even know if you can use them, but-” he shrugged. 

“Thanks.” Bucky whispered. 

Then he nodded mutely and turned back to camp, slipping the box into his trouser pocket as he went. 

Steve remained, feeling oddly cold. He didn’t know if a shoddy hanukiah could say everything he wanted it to, or if it should, or if it even made Bucky happy, but if there was a chance? Well. Steve could never love anything better. 

**** 

Two weeks later Steve ran amuck of a well-placed anti-tank gun. On foot. 

Steve had gone down in a second, the thud of his blonde head against the rubble-strewn dirt lost to Bucky’s cry of grief and rage. 

He was at Steve’s side before he’d even told his limbs to move, whipping up the shield just in time to catch a shell burst, crouching over Steve’s prone form. The moment the last of the shrapnel made its home in the earth Bucky was up, dragging Steve by the collar with an ease he should not have felt, aided first by adrenalin (what could  _ only  _ be adrenalin, not  _ anything  _ from a Hydra vial) and then by Duggan’s muscles. 

Hours later, Steve languished on a cot in the patrol tent, having been bandaged up as best as the overloaded field hospital could manage and deemed unlikely to spontaneously die. Bucky, well-acquainted with Steve’s affinity for near-death experiences, kept vigil by the head of the bed. Writing reports had morphed into cleaning his gun and singing along to the bawdy chants outside, which by nightfall had somehow transitioned into singing Christmas carols- or at least humming the tunes of them, not that he could put a name to any individual one, despite the Christmas dinners he had shared with the Rogers from time to time. 

It took him a while to notice that someone was singing along; and badly. 

“Steve, I’m gonna  _ kill  _ you!” Bucky hissed, kneeling up on the cot to get a good, hard look in his best friend’s eyes. 

They were clear, if filled with pain, and sparkling with amusement. 

“I haven’t had that strong a reaction to my singing in a while.” he quipped. The effect of the bravado was somewhat ruined by the obvious rasp in his lungs. 

“Damn you.” Bucky chided, knocking Steve’s shoulder lightly with his knuckles to hide the fact that he was shaking in relief. 

“I suppose.” Steve replied, blood beading on his chapped lips as he grinned. 

“Oh, shut up!” Bucky laughed; he met Steve’s gaze, soft-browed and wondering. A light delirium, he rationalised, even as he was helpless to stop his own features softening in turn. 

If you squinted and prayed you could almost imagine that the scene playing out was one Bucky had rehearsed a million times in his dreams: him, Steve, a warm bed, no barrier but the gentle touch of skin, no hurry, the soft suffusion of genuine contentment. A little bit of mutual adoration. 

“ _ Adank _ , mein liber.” he whispered. 

“I don’t know what that means.” Steve murmured back. 

“I know.” Bucky replied. 

He chuckled, bit his already bloodied lip. If he dared to hope, Bucky might say that the oceans in his eyes were experiencing an eclipse. Slowly, Steve’s lips parted. His breath smelt, but so did Bucky’s clothes, the dirt, the war. 

“I have a confession.” 

“Oh?” 

Suddenly, Bucky was aware of his pulse in his throat, his thumb against Steve’s shirtsleeve, the breeze against his back from the canvas tent flap. 

“And feel free to punch me, or blame this on delirium, but-” 

“ _ Are _ you-” Bucky had been half-joking to himself before...

“I’m not delirious, but, uh,” Steve arched an eyebrow “I am in love with you.” 

“Huh.” Bucky sniffed “You are?” 

“I am.” 

Not one part of him, upon further examination, revealed an inch of insincerity. Bucky’s eyes burned. 

“Well, then,” he blinked rapidly “Merry bloody Christmas.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Muter = Mother  
> Adank, mein liber = Thank you, my love.
> 
> Also, the title is from the hymn/carol 'It Came Upon A Midnight Clear', from the verse "...man at war with man hears not/ The love song which they bring:/ O hush the noise, ye men of strife,/ And hear the angels sing", which I am not going to academically reference today.


End file.
